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Today's News (2020/1/22)
Jan. 22nd, 2020 11:55 pmIt’s Day One of the Senate Impeachment Trial and Trump’s Defense Team Is Already Lying
https://www.motherjones.com/impeachment/2020/01/pat-cipollone-lie-senate-impeachment/
It took less than two hours in the Senate impeachment trial on Tuesday for a member of President Donald Trump’s defense team to tell an outright lie.
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone began by complaining about House Democrats’ process for interviewing witnesses in the impeachment inquiry. “The proceedings took place in the basement of the House of Representatives,” Cipollone said. Then he added, “Not even [House Intelligence Committee chair Adam] Schiff’s Republican colleagues were allowed into the SCIF”—the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility where the interviews took place.
There are several issues with that narrative. For one, closed-door interviews are routine for sensitive congressional probes. But more important, plenty of Republicans participated in the closed-door meetings; they sat on the three committees leading the impeachment investigation. The stunt pulled by dozens of Republicans who loudly claimed otherwise was a clear attempt to distract from the inquiry’s bombshell testimonies.
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#GOPCoverup trends on Twitter as Senate Republicans are blasted for ‘sham’ impeachment trial
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/gopcoverup-trends-on-twitter-as-senate-republicans-are-blasted-for-sham-impeachment-trial/
Senate Republicans were blasted for repeatedly voting against documents and witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
Multiple vulnerable Senate Republicans will face voters in 2020, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) himself, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ), Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
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D.C. attorney general sues Trump inaugural committee over $1 million booking at president’s hotel
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/dc-attorney-general-sues-trump-inaugural-committee-over-1-million-booking-at-presidents-hotel/2020/01/22/aa4ffab6-3c90-11ea-b90d-5652806c3b3a_story.html
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine sued President Trump’s inaugural committee and business Wednesday, alleging that the committee violated its nonprofit status by spending more than $1 million to book a ballroom at Trump’s D.C. hotel that its staff knew was overpriced and that it barely used.
During the lead-up to Trump’s January 2017 inauguration, the committee booked the hotel ballroom for $175,000 a day, plus more than $300,000 in food and beverage costs, over the objections of its own event planner.
The committee was formed to organize the events around the inauguration, but Racine alleges it instead “abandoned this purpose and violated District law when it wasted approximately $1 million of charitable funds in overpayment for the use of event space at the Trump hotel.”
“These charges were unreasonable and improperly served to enrich” Trump’s business, the complaint reads. He alleges that Trump and his daughter, Ivanka Trump, were likely aware of the charges, based on documents Racine subpoenaed from the committee and the Trump Organization.
-----
Pence attends homophobic sermon streamed on White House YouTube channel
Shortly after Vice President Mike Pence addressed the congregation, a pastor claimed that same-sex attraction is caused by “the devil.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/pence-attends-homophobic-sermon-streamed-white-house-youtube-channel-n1119621
Vice President Mike Pence spoke at a church service Sunday in which religious leaders said, among other things, that homosexuality is caused by "the devil."
The White House streamed the service live, and it’s still available on the official White House YouTube page.
Minutes after Pence promised congregants at the Holy City Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tennessee, that he would “stand strong for the values that you hold dear,” Bishop Jerry Wayne Taylor launched into a diatribe about the “demonic” nature of homosexuality.
-----
Lindsey Graham goes berserk at impeachment presser: ‘I’m not covering up anything, I’m exposing your hatred!’
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/lindsey-graham-goes-berserk-at-impeachment-presser-im-not-covering-up-anything-im-exposing-your-hatred/
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Wednesday excoriated Democrats for continuing the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
“If I was the president, I wouldn’t cooperate with these guys at all,” Graham told reporters at a Senate press conference. “I wouldn’t give them the time of day! They’re on a crusade to destroy this man and they don’t care what they destroy in the process of trying to destroy Donald Trump.”
-----
President Trump: "We have all the material. They don't have the material."
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1220037469376258048
[Video. Lots of lies. So many lies. Just fabrication after fabrication. But he did admit to having all the information and not handing it over to Congress. See:
https://twitter.com/RepKClark/status/1220019531562831873
https://twitter.com/RepValDemings/status/1220017702011535364
]
-----
Battle over Social Security spills into 2020 campaign as Democrats spar and Trump weighs in
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/01/22/trump-appears-open-overhauling-social-security-medicare-break-2016-campaign/
Statements by President Trump and top Democratic presidential candidates in recent days have thrust Social Security into the middle of the 2020 campaign, revealing tensions within both political parties over government spending and a program that pays monthly benefits to nearly 70 million people.
Trump appeared to express a new openness to revamping entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare in an interview aired Wednesday morning, potentially opening the door to overhauling two of the country’s largest government programs if he is elected to a second term.
Speaking with CNBC from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said tackling entitlement spending is “the easiest of all things” and seemed to suggest higher economic growth would make it simpler to cut spending on those programs. Those comments come amid a heated debate in the Democratic presidential primary over former vice president Joe Biden’s record on Social Security, just days before the Iowa caucuses.
-----
[Spotted on Twitter]
PedanticRomantc
twitter.com/PedanticRomantc
https://twitter.com/PedanticRomantc/status/1219776744640503808
TemTem got to be a hero for the Gamers™ for two days as an example of how GameFreak are lazy hacks before being swiftly cancelled by them for *gasp* letting you pick your pronouns
Now, how "being forced to choose your pronouns & your appearance" represents a loss of freedom as opposed to "being forced to choose whether you're a boy or a girl, which only affects pronouns & appearance," I'm not sure, but these folks clearly have much bigger brains than me
-----
24 hours in, senators flout quaint impeachment rules
https://apnews.com/326336f2b37f03a521e867db9a41d0f0
WASHINGTON (AP) — So much for the Senate’s quaint rules and tradition.
Almost immediately after Chief Justice John Roberts gaveled in Wednesday’s session of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, bored and weary senators started openly flouting some basic guidelines in a chamber that prizes decorum.
-----
Column: The Postal Service is America’s most popular government agency. Why does Trump hate it?
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-01-09/postal-service-trump
It’s time once again to stand up for the most popular government agency of all, the one that curiously has come under the most consistent attack by the Trump administration and its congressional henchpersons.
We’re talking about the U.S. Postal Service. According to a survey last year by the Pew Research Center, 90% of the public has a favorable view of the USPS, handily outdistancing even such other popular agencies as the National Park Service and NASA.
Yet the conservative drumbeat for privatizing this crucial service never seems to slacken, even though privatization, which would inevitably mean crummy service and immense price increases, would be the surest route to turning public admiration for the USPS into public scorn.
-----
Republicans focus on insults as Democrats open their case in Trump's Senate trial
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/23/politics/impeachment-watch-january-22/index.html
Detail by detail, the Democrats prosecuting the impeachment case against President Donald Trump laid out their arguments on Wednesday. They included:
* How Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential Democratic rival in 2020;
* How Trump held up about $400 million in US military and security aid, breaking the law and defying congressional intent;
* How a White House meeting was dangled in front of the new Ukrainian President;
* How insiders like Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland knew there was a quid pro quo for the aid;
* How the Pentagon raised the alarm about the held aid;
* How recently released emails -- hidden from Congress by the Trump administration -- detail the effort to hold the aid against the better judgment of most of the government;
* How all of this also helped Russia, which tried to help get Trump elected.
Not all of these facts factor into the formal impeachment articles -- abuse of power and obstruction of Congress -- that the Senate is considering, but the case, methodically laid out with video from the House impeachment hearings, is hard to deny.
-----
U.S. to impose visa restrictions for pregnant women
The Trump administration has been restricting all forms of immigration, but the president has been particularly plagued by the issue of birthright citizenship.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/u-s-impose-visas-restrictions-pregnant-women-n1120706
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is coming out with new visa restrictions aimed at restricting “birth tourism," in which women travel to the U.S. to give birth so their children can have a coveted U.S. passport.
The State Department planned to publicize the rules Thursday, according to two officials with knowledge of the plans who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The rules would make it more difficult for pregnant women to travel on tourist visas. In one draft of the regulations, they would have to clear an additional hurdle before obtaining the visas — convincing a consular officer that they have another legitimate reason to come to the U.S.
The Trump administration has been restricting all forms of immigration, but the president has been particularly plagued by the issue of birthright citizenship — anyone born in the U.S. is considered a citizen, under the Constitution. He has railed against the practice and threatened to end it, but scholars and members of his administration have said it's not so easy to do.
https://www.motherjones.com/impeachment/2020/01/pat-cipollone-lie-senate-impeachment/
It took less than two hours in the Senate impeachment trial on Tuesday for a member of President Donald Trump’s defense team to tell an outright lie.
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone began by complaining about House Democrats’ process for interviewing witnesses in the impeachment inquiry. “The proceedings took place in the basement of the House of Representatives,” Cipollone said. Then he added, “Not even [House Intelligence Committee chair Adam] Schiff’s Republican colleagues were allowed into the SCIF”—the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility where the interviews took place.
There are several issues with that narrative. For one, closed-door interviews are routine for sensitive congressional probes. But more important, plenty of Republicans participated in the closed-door meetings; they sat on the three committees leading the impeachment investigation. The stunt pulled by dozens of Republicans who loudly claimed otherwise was a clear attempt to distract from the inquiry’s bombshell testimonies.
-----
#GOPCoverup trends on Twitter as Senate Republicans are blasted for ‘sham’ impeachment trial
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/gopcoverup-trends-on-twitter-as-senate-republicans-are-blasted-for-sham-impeachment-trial/
Senate Republicans were blasted for repeatedly voting against documents and witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
Multiple vulnerable Senate Republicans will face voters in 2020, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) himself, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ), Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
-----
D.C. attorney general sues Trump inaugural committee over $1 million booking at president’s hotel
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/dc-attorney-general-sues-trump-inaugural-committee-over-1-million-booking-at-presidents-hotel/2020/01/22/aa4ffab6-3c90-11ea-b90d-5652806c3b3a_story.html
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine sued President Trump’s inaugural committee and business Wednesday, alleging that the committee violated its nonprofit status by spending more than $1 million to book a ballroom at Trump’s D.C. hotel that its staff knew was overpriced and that it barely used.
During the lead-up to Trump’s January 2017 inauguration, the committee booked the hotel ballroom for $175,000 a day, plus more than $300,000 in food and beverage costs, over the objections of its own event planner.
The committee was formed to organize the events around the inauguration, but Racine alleges it instead “abandoned this purpose and violated District law when it wasted approximately $1 million of charitable funds in overpayment for the use of event space at the Trump hotel.”
“These charges were unreasonable and improperly served to enrich” Trump’s business, the complaint reads. He alleges that Trump and his daughter, Ivanka Trump, were likely aware of the charges, based on documents Racine subpoenaed from the committee and the Trump Organization.
-----
Pence attends homophobic sermon streamed on White House YouTube channel
Shortly after Vice President Mike Pence addressed the congregation, a pastor claimed that same-sex attraction is caused by “the devil.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/pence-attends-homophobic-sermon-streamed-white-house-youtube-channel-n1119621
Vice President Mike Pence spoke at a church service Sunday in which religious leaders said, among other things, that homosexuality is caused by "the devil."
The White House streamed the service live, and it’s still available on the official White House YouTube page.
Minutes after Pence promised congregants at the Holy City Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tennessee, that he would “stand strong for the values that you hold dear,” Bishop Jerry Wayne Taylor launched into a diatribe about the “demonic” nature of homosexuality.
-----
Lindsey Graham goes berserk at impeachment presser: ‘I’m not covering up anything, I’m exposing your hatred!’
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/lindsey-graham-goes-berserk-at-impeachment-presser-im-not-covering-up-anything-im-exposing-your-hatred/
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Wednesday excoriated Democrats for continuing the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
“If I was the president, I wouldn’t cooperate with these guys at all,” Graham told reporters at a Senate press conference. “I wouldn’t give them the time of day! They’re on a crusade to destroy this man and they don’t care what they destroy in the process of trying to destroy Donald Trump.”
-----
President Trump: "We have all the material. They don't have the material."
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1220037469376258048
[Video. Lots of lies. So many lies. Just fabrication after fabrication. But he did admit to having all the information and not handing it over to Congress. See:
https://twitter.com/RepKClark/status/1220019531562831873
https://twitter.com/RepValDemings/status/1220017702011535364
]
-----
Battle over Social Security spills into 2020 campaign as Democrats spar and Trump weighs in
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/01/22/trump-appears-open-overhauling-social-security-medicare-break-2016-campaign/
Statements by President Trump and top Democratic presidential candidates in recent days have thrust Social Security into the middle of the 2020 campaign, revealing tensions within both political parties over government spending and a program that pays monthly benefits to nearly 70 million people.
Trump appeared to express a new openness to revamping entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare in an interview aired Wednesday morning, potentially opening the door to overhauling two of the country’s largest government programs if he is elected to a second term.
Speaking with CNBC from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said tackling entitlement spending is “the easiest of all things” and seemed to suggest higher economic growth would make it simpler to cut spending on those programs. Those comments come amid a heated debate in the Democratic presidential primary over former vice president Joe Biden’s record on Social Security, just days before the Iowa caucuses.
-----
[Spotted on Twitter]
PedanticRomantc
twitter.com/PedanticRomantc
https://twitter.com/PedanticRomantc/status/1219776744640503808
TemTem got to be a hero for the Gamers™ for two days as an example of how GameFreak are lazy hacks before being swiftly cancelled by them for *gasp* letting you pick your pronouns
Now, how "being forced to choose your pronouns & your appearance" represents a loss of freedom as opposed to "being forced to choose whether you're a boy or a girl, which only affects pronouns & appearance," I'm not sure, but these folks clearly have much bigger brains than me
-----
24 hours in, senators flout quaint impeachment rules
https://apnews.com/326336f2b37f03a521e867db9a41d0f0
WASHINGTON (AP) — So much for the Senate’s quaint rules and tradition.
Almost immediately after Chief Justice John Roberts gaveled in Wednesday’s session of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, bored and weary senators started openly flouting some basic guidelines in a chamber that prizes decorum.
-----
Column: The Postal Service is America’s most popular government agency. Why does Trump hate it?
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-01-09/postal-service-trump
It’s time once again to stand up for the most popular government agency of all, the one that curiously has come under the most consistent attack by the Trump administration and its congressional henchpersons.
We’re talking about the U.S. Postal Service. According to a survey last year by the Pew Research Center, 90% of the public has a favorable view of the USPS, handily outdistancing even such other popular agencies as the National Park Service and NASA.
Yet the conservative drumbeat for privatizing this crucial service never seems to slacken, even though privatization, which would inevitably mean crummy service and immense price increases, would be the surest route to turning public admiration for the USPS into public scorn.
-----
Republicans focus on insults as Democrats open their case in Trump's Senate trial
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/23/politics/impeachment-watch-january-22/index.html
Detail by detail, the Democrats prosecuting the impeachment case against President Donald Trump laid out their arguments on Wednesday. They included:
* How Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential Democratic rival in 2020;
* How Trump held up about $400 million in US military and security aid, breaking the law and defying congressional intent;
* How a White House meeting was dangled in front of the new Ukrainian President;
* How insiders like Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland knew there was a quid pro quo for the aid;
* How the Pentagon raised the alarm about the held aid;
* How recently released emails -- hidden from Congress by the Trump administration -- detail the effort to hold the aid against the better judgment of most of the government;
* How all of this also helped Russia, which tried to help get Trump elected.
Not all of these facts factor into the formal impeachment articles -- abuse of power and obstruction of Congress -- that the Senate is considering, but the case, methodically laid out with video from the House impeachment hearings, is hard to deny.
-----
U.S. to impose visa restrictions for pregnant women
The Trump administration has been restricting all forms of immigration, but the president has been particularly plagued by the issue of birthright citizenship.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/u-s-impose-visas-restrictions-pregnant-women-n1120706
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is coming out with new visa restrictions aimed at restricting “birth tourism," in which women travel to the U.S. to give birth so their children can have a coveted U.S. passport.
The State Department planned to publicize the rules Thursday, according to two officials with knowledge of the plans who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The rules would make it more difficult for pregnant women to travel on tourist visas. In one draft of the regulations, they would have to clear an additional hurdle before obtaining the visas — convincing a consular officer that they have another legitimate reason to come to the U.S.
The Trump administration has been restricting all forms of immigration, but the president has been particularly plagued by the issue of birthright citizenship — anyone born in the U.S. is considered a citizen, under the Constitution. He has railed against the practice and threatened to end it, but scholars and members of his administration have said it's not so easy to do.
